“Don’t you? Don’t you think Beth and Kane are going to make it? Don’t you want Neil and Shannon and Kathleen and all your other brothers and sisters to be happy?”
“They’re family, of course I want them to be happy. How could you question that?”
“You seem to question it more than I do.”
Weary all of a sudden, he leaned closer to her warmth. Maybe Maddie was right and he was just making excuses. Everything had been calm before she’d arrived, now it was crazy and mixed up, and he couldn’t decide if he liked it or wanted the confusion to go away.
“Tell me something,” Maddie murmured. “Do you still think I don’t know the difference between a great kiss and one that isn’t?”
Despite his churning thoughts, he chuckled. “Are you trying to provoke me again?”
“What if I am?”
Maddie angled her head back. She brushed her lips across Patrick’s jaw, and the rasp of his late-afternoon beard shadow made her tummy turn flip-flops. She felt the shudder that went through him, her own body shivering in response.
She’d been so certain she would never get married, never trust a man enough to take that chance. But maybe it wouldn’t be such a risk with the right man. Not that Patrick was right for her, but he was so good and decent and sexy she finally understood why women would fling themselves at a guy they barely knew.
“Well, are you going to do something about it?” she asked, her fingers easing over the broad expanse of his chest.
“Maddie…don’t.” Her name was a cross between a groan and a plea. Tension stretched his nerves tight as a violin string, drawn by the same old argument between rationality and the demands of his body. “We’re in my mother’s house.”
“And everyone is either outside or asleep.”
“The twins could wake up…the others could come back inside,” he muttered.
Yet even as Patrick protested, he fumbled along the wall, searching for the doorknob of the closet used to store holiday decorations and seasonal clothing. It was just the sort of dark, private place he needed to kiss Maddie good and hard, then talk some sense into her.
Darkness closed around them as he pulled the door shut, and even sound was muffled by the press of winter coats it was still too early to need. But he hadn’t expected to hear Maddie giggle the moment he reached for her again.
“What’s so funny?”
“I guess we aren’t alone after all. Tiger Lily scooted in with us, she’s purring against my leg.”
“Tiger Lily can take care of herself.”
With unerring accuracy his mouth found hers, and it was such a relief to touch her again the unnatural tension drained out of him. It shouldn’t feel so right to sidestep his conscience and give in to his baser instincts.
The cat complained at being ignored, but it was too late. Patrick didn’t give a damn how Tiger Lily felt about being locked in a closet with two humans more interested in each other than her royal felininity. And he darned well wasn’t going to give Maddie a chance to care.
She felt too good beneath his hands, sweet and eager, mixing sensuality with laughter and honest sexual curiosity.
“How in heaven did you stay a virgin this long?” he breathed.
“Who said I was a virgin?”
He let out a snort. “I did, that’s who.”
Maddie wiggled, freeing one hand and pressing it against his jaw to get some space between them. “You could be wrong.”
“No way. Only a virgin would have to ask about this…” Patrick said, rotating his hips, leaving her in no doubt about the hard ridge of his desire. “And few virgins, either. Your boyfriends must have been more gentlemanly than I ever thought of being.”
“Ted was my first and only boyfriend, and I think he was too scared of Daddy’s gun to try anything,” she confessed.
“Gun, huh?” Patrick ran his tongue across her index finger. The muscles in Maddie’s abdomen clenched, taken by surprise by the gliding caress. “I’m starting to wonder about that daddy of yours.”
“Mmm.” She had to take several breaths before her head cleared enough to say something sensible. “There’s nothing to wonder about. He used to be the county sheriff. Daddy, that is, not Ted.”
“Used to be, eh? Did Daddy get tired of politics?”
“Now he’s the mayor.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sure he didn’t actually threaten Ted. At least not much,” she murmured. “But he can look pretty fierce, and he’s very protective.”
Patrick was too distracted by feminine curves to answer right away. But if he ever had a daughter, he’d feel the same as Maddie’s father. It’s what came of being a former bad boy, you knew all the trouble bad boys can make. With his luck he’d have a daughter as wild as he’d been, and there’d be hell to pay.
If he had a daughter?
He hastily stomped on the thought.
“I guess your daddy did what he could, short of locking you up in a nunnery. And that would have been a real waste.” Patrick tugged at the hard nub of Maddie’s nipple and felt her shudder from head to toe.
She pulled his head back down to her mouth and he tasted the dark, rich taste of chocolate and coffee, with an underlying spice that was Maddie herself. His tongue plunged deeper, exploring her flavors, stroking the velvet softness. This was the way to kiss, slow and deep, wrapped in a cocoon of darkness. No one would ever think of looking for them in the closet, so he had all the time in the world to enjoy the moment.
“We have to talk,” he whispered a few minutes later, albeit reluctantly. It wasn’t often you found a woman who enjoyed the simple art of kissing the way Maddie seemed to.
“Uh-uh.”
“Now.”
“Not yet.” Maddie spread her fingers across the hot skin of Patrick’s back. He was so warm, sleeping with him would be like sleeping with a furnace.
Sleeping with Patrick…she shivered for an entirely different reason than cold. She’d wondered if kissing him would be just as powerful as the first time, but it was even more intense and overwhelming than before.
“Maddie.”
She slid her fingers inside his shirt, exploring the smooth expanse of chest beneath. With a small, desperate sound, Patrick fastened both hands over hers. Both their breathing was erratic, which was small comfort now that he’d apparently decided the kissing was over and the inevitable talking should begin.
“I don’t want to talk,” she said simply.
“We have to.”
“No we don’t. We don’t have to say another word to each other. You can pretend I don’t exist again.”
“I never pretended you don’t exist.”
Maddie straightened her foot and heard a protest from Tiger Lily when she accidentally bumped her nose with her heel. “Sorry, baby,” she said. “We’re crowding you, aren’t we?”
“You don’t have to apologize to a cat.”
“Why not? They have feelings, too.”
If there had been any light in the closet she was certain she’d see Patrick rolling his eyes.
“You’re an animal lover, aren’t you?” he asked, sounding resigned. “You probably even talk to plants and carry spiders outside so they can go free.”
Maddie didn’t go quite that far—she killed black widow spiders when absolutely necessary—but she did love animals. Especially cats of any size. They even had a mountain lion who came down to drink at her parents’ swimming pool every evening. One time she’d brought her baby, and Maddie had hardly been able to breathe, she was so excited.
“Anything wrong with loving animals?”
“No.” Patrick shook his head wryly. She’d managed to effectively sidetrack him. Again.
He didn’t think Maddie did it consciously, but her clever brain was more than capable of figuring out a way to avoid talking about things she’d rather not discuss. Maddie was a creature of instinct and heart, and she seemed to have her instincts trained on him at the moment.
Only not for marriage, he thought curiously. Maybe not even an affair. Intrigued by sex, yes. Longing for a baby, definitely. But she wasn’t a kitten flexing her sexual claws, or a baby-hungry woman on the prowl. She was just…Maddie. Sweet, shimmering with light and possibility, and truly innocent in a way he’d never been, even before losing his father.
The sound of claws pulling on fabric sank slowly into his awareness. A moment later he yelped when something furry and determined dropped on his shoulder and head-butted his temple.
“Where did she come from?”
“The darling.” Maddie eased one hand from under his shirt and reached up to pet the little monster. “She must have climbed up the coats. I felt them moving.”
Patrick sighed. It seemed Tiger Lily was in cahoots with Maddie, helping her distract him from the important things that needed to be said. Even worse, the stinker was getting more attention now than he was.
Women always stuck together.
He opened his mouth only to close it again when he heard someone in the hall, not far from the closet door.
“They’re not with the girls,” said Kathleen.
“Maybe they went for a walk.”
“And I’ll bet they didn’t want company.” Shannon snickered. “No chance any of us might invite ourselves along.”
“That was really naughty of you the last time,” Kathleen scolded. “You knew Patrick was trying to get Maddie alone.”
Patrick winced, knowing Maddie wouldn’t appreciate the reminder of their “walk” the last time they’d been at his mother’s house together. He’d wanted to talk that night, too, and succeeded in spectacularly stuffing his foot in his mouth. Now he was hiding in the coat closet, trying to keep his family from knowing he’d been necking with a girl.
Maddie was shaking with suppressed laughter, small sounds escaping from her mouth.
“Shh,” he hissed.
“Do you feel like you’re in high school again?” she whispered.
“More like junior high school, and keep it down. They’ll go away in a minute. We can pretend we just came in the side door.”
His strategy might have worked if Tiger Lily hadn’t decided she’d had enough of the closet.
“Merroowoo.”
“Where did that come from?” Kathleen said.
Patrick reached up to soothe Tiger Lily back into silence, but the ungrateful little beast sank her teeth into his thumb.
“Ow!”
Tiger Lily dug her claws into his skin for traction when the door was jerked open. She leaped from his shoulder, hitting the floor at a dead run. He instinctively jerked away from the needle-sharp claws and toppled into the thick collection of winter clothing.
He landed on his rear end—which seemed strangely apropos to the situation—barely managing to keep Maddie from the same ignominious collision. Instead she landed on his lap. The breath whooshed out of him, not from her slight weight, but from the contact with his ill-controlled arousal.
Hands parted the various coats and sweaters they’d fallen into, and he gazed up at three of his sisters, two of his brothers and his mother. The topper was when his sleepy-eyed nieces peered at him through the sea of legs.
“I hope you have a good explanation for this, young man,” said Pegeen, merriment dancing in her eyes. “I’d hate to have to ground you.”
Chapter Nine
“Do you really think so?” Maddie asked. She adjusted the headphones over her ears.
“Absolutely,” said the caller. “Trust me, men are pigs.”
She giggled. “Richard, you are a man.”
“Hey, what can I say? Who should know better than one of the swine? My wife says it’s genetically linked to the male chromosome.”
Patrick sat outside the control booth, watching Maddie charm, laugh and chat her way through her fourth broadcast of Heart-to-Heart. He honestly thought she forgot she was on the air when she was talking to the callers.
“She’s wonderful,” Dixie said. “So unselfconscious. And the callers just adore her.”
“What’s not to adore?” he muttered, unable to keep his gaze from Maddie’s face.
She had a voice that transmitted well electronically, and she was sweet and sincere. They’d originally planned to play romantic country ballads with Maddie taking a call between the sets—if there were any calls—but talking was crowding out the music, much to the apparent pleasure of everyone tuned in.
For a woman who had every reason to dislike and distrust men, Maddie was as generous and open with the male callers as she was with the women. At the moment she was earnestly trying to convince Richard, and Richard’s wife, that being a man didn’t automatically condemn a guy to swine-like behavior.
Patrick sat back in his chair, shaking his head.
A secret concern he’d harbored about the show was that it would be one of those sappy, syrupy things that slowly began to grate on your nerves. To Dixie’s credit, she’d created an introduction and format that was as straightforward and unpretentious as Maddie herself.
“Didn’t I tell you this would work?” Dixie asked, gleefully rubbing her hands together. She was in her element as the producer of not one but two successful programs.
“I never said it wouldn’t,” he reminded.
“But you didn’t want her to do a show.”
He gave Dixie a repressive look. “Maddie has a mouth that runs away with itself faster than light speed. You never know what’s going to come out.”
The producer ducked her head to answer one of the incoming calls, but not before Patrick saw her grin. He didn’t blame her. By now everyone in the station had decided that he and Maddie were involved in some way. It was a huge source of amusement and jokes, though entirely out of Maddie’s earshot.
Thank goodness.
Crockett was a small town, but it was close enough to Seattle that most everyone had a veneer of city sophistication. His employees seemed to understand Maddie was different and saved their raised eyebrows and comments for him alone.
At least they didn’t know about the coat closet.
Though he’d expected to wince each time he thought about getting caught with Maddie, it hadn’t worked out that way. All in all, it had been rather funny. Two grown people caught necking like a couple of kids. There hadn’t been any doubt about their activity, not with his shirt hanging out and Maddie’s face and neck showing a faint case of whisker burn.
Now Patrick understood why Kane had begun shaving so often, he didn’t want to irritate his wife’s delicate skin—skin that was just like Maddie’s.
In another few minutes Dixie signaled to Maddie that time was nearly up. They’d learned to schedule extra minutes for the wrap-up since Maddie wouldn’t hurry people off the phone because she claimed it was rude. If time was left over they just played a song until the next DJ took over.
The Seattle Kid, fully recovered from his bout with the flu, already waited inside the booth. Mack wore a paternal look on his face as he helped Maddie start a song, gently encouraging in a way the wisecracking DJ had probably never acted in his life.
“The audience isn’t the only one who thinks she’s great,” Dixie said, smiling.
“You’re just grateful he didn’t take your head off for getting his show shortened.”
“Naw, his audience is even bigger now ’cause they’re all hoping she’ll come back on again.”
Maddie came out a minute later. “Was that all right?” she asked the producer, a hint of anxiety in her voice. He noticed she didn’t so much as flick an eyelash in his direction. It stung, although he should have been grateful she was trying to keep things on a professional level, at the station at least.
“You did great,” Dixie said. “Don’t forget we’re returning your rental tonight and picking up the car from your sister.”
Patrick frowned. “What?”
“Beth is loaning me her Honda to save money on the rental,” Maddie explained. “But the car place is at the Seatac Airport and I
need a ride back. Beth wanted to go, but she doesn’t have a lot of energy right now because of her pregnancy. Kane didn’t want to leave her alone, and I didn’t want him hiring someone to do it, so Dixie offered to help.”
“You could have asked me.”
Maddie’s feet shifted uneasily. “I didn’t want to inconvenience you.”
“It isn’t inconvenient,” he said through his teeth. “I’ll take you myself.”
“But you aren’t—”
“Whatever you say, boss,” Dixie said, cutting off Maddie’s protest. She gave him a broad wink that was meant to be funny, but Patrick didn’t think it was the least bit humorous that Maddie hadn’t wanted to ask him for a simple favor.
It was no big deal to go to the airport and bring her back. He’d wanted things uncomplicated, but that didn’t mean he was living on a desert island or anything.
Hell, even his family hardly ever asked…
Time stretched endlessly as some hard truths sank into Patrick. His family was always careful not to ask more than he wanted to give, which apparently wasn’t much from their perspective. The only thing his mother pushed about was coming to family dinner, and even then she was gentle and undemanding.
No guilt.
Just concern.
What he didn’t know is whether they felt they couldn’t count on him or were just giving him the distance he wanted.
Patrick ran his hand over his suddenly aching head. Maddie said he put up barriers between himself and the family. He’d denied it, but what if she was right? He didn’t want to deal with pain and confusion, so he just walled it away, outside his heart…along with everyone else.
“I’d better get back to my desk,” Maddie said. She was silently backing into the corridor as if getting ready to run.
“No. We’ll go for the car now.”
“I have work to do.”
“You’re a DJ now, and your show is over.”
“But Stephen needs—”
“Stephen is getting all the help he needs from Candy,” he interrupted harshly.
God, he’d been right about Maddie turning his life upside down. She’d put the station on its ear, upset the familiar order of things by getting her own show, plotting a romance between his stern receptionist and advertising director, and making him question his relationship with the entire world.
The Right Twin For Him (O'Rourke Family 2) Page 11